On the occasion of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, Centre for Civic Education (CCE) highlights the importance of conducting continued actions that seek to develop the culture of remembrance, respect, confession and compassion with all victims that suffered the fate of harshest violence and torment.
Forms of fascism and chauvinism, that are expressed even today, represent serious warning of consequences of inadequate facing with terrors of totalitarian consciousness. Therefore, it is the duty of all of us to do everything that this terrible crime that happened to Jewish people, is never forgotten. The culture of remembrance is also important for the post-Yugoslavian territory, which was the soil of calamities less then three decades ago. In the midst of war conflicts, at least 130.000 people lost their lives, while the fate of 13.000 people still remains unresolved. This is a great danger for the stability of society and region, considering the fact that we, as a society, have not yet faced with our war past, especially with the impunity of war crimes, and failure to determine complete facts on them, which CCE, independently, pointed out many times, or as a referent organisation of Coalition for RECOM in Montenegro.
Also, it is necessary to create the possibility for future generations to, through the education, pass on all of the facts about the past crimes, which need to become a part of general culture and elementary education. CCE has been promoting the shaping of such framework of values for many years, by conducting numerous peace and educational programmes, that elaborate the topics of transitional justice and facing with past, which it will continue to do in years to come. CCE believes that by serving the justice for victims, a culture of reconciliation, tolerance and peace can be established, that has also helped shaping Europe after the World War II, as a primary value.
January 27 is marked as the International Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust, because on that day in 1945, largest and most notorious of all concentration camps in Nazi Germany, camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, was freed. More than 1.300 000 people from all over the Europe, majority being Jewish people, were deported in it, and 1.100 000 were killed. In 2005, the UN General Assembly adopted the official resolution on the commemoration of International Day of Remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust. Resolution calls on all UN member states to respect the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, and encourages the development of educational programmes on the history of the Holocaust, thereby showing the determination to help prevent the act of genocide from happening in future.
Tamara Milaš, Programme associate